


The Harvest Festival

by BunnySiege



Category: Summer Camp Island (Cartoon)
Genre: Animal Instincts, Autumn, Celebrations, Festivals, Full Moon, Magic, Mystery, Party, Temporary Amnesia, Werewolf, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27728354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunnySiege/pseuds/BunnySiege
Summary: Hedgehog attends the last full moon gathering of the summer, on which the Werewolf Queen hosts the Harvest Festival. The aftermath leaves her with some parting gifts, and plenty of confusion about who the Werewolf Queen is, and what she means to her.
Kudos: 6





	The Harvest Festival

The last full moon I'd see at camp was soon to rise over my cabin, and Betsy would be there to meet up before we went out for the night. I didn't really know what she had meant when she'd said 'I want to give you a good sendoff' earlier in the week. I could've assumed that it was a good thing, and that she had something great planned. Werewolf nights were always some of the most fun highlights of my summer, outside of the occasional crazy quest with Oscar. He attracted trouble like flies to a week-old sandwich. He was still my best friend, even if he was way too high-energy sometimes. I just needed the occasional break from him.

I could see Betsy approaching from the front window of my cabin and got out of my desk chair, pushing it in quickly to rush over to the door. Betsy was just starting to knock before I turned the handle and swung it open, feeling the excitement building for the evening ahead. Usually Betsy described werewolf nights as being fairly routine, but the way she'd talked about this one had been special. A step away from the ordinary, and much more than the usual stress-relief party night. It was the Harvest Moon, the true mark of Autumn beginning, and a reminder that there was only another week and a half left at camp.

My original witch mentor gave me a beaming smile, pointing up at the sky. The voice she spoke in was giddy, much more so than her normal calm, but happy demeanor.

"We're probably gonna want to be in the woods when the moon comes up."

I didn't know what the hurry was, but I rushed to kill the lights and shut my cabin door tight. Without any further delay, we set off towards the forest. For a moment we both buzzed with excitement in silence, thinking about the night ahead. What did it hold? I wanted to ask, but she knew I didn't know if there was something up. I figured that she would explain at her own pace. At least that was my assumption. Maybe a little foolish of me, in hindsight. As we continued into the forest I finally opened my mouth to ask, just as we neared the magical grove where I had first met the Werewolf Queen.

"Is there uh, any reason you said this night was special? It's a full moon, but is there any other reason?"

Betsy glanced up at the sky as the last of the daylight began to fade, then looked back to me. Her smile was a bit aloof, and she gave me a very vague, cryptic answer.

"It's sort of a special day for the werewolves on the island. There's a whole festival tonight, the moon will be orange, and it... well, you'll see Hedgehog. Trust me, it's like our usual parties, but even better."

The idea of a festival that was even better than our usual parties set my imagination to work. What could that possibly mean? Did she mean that the party was going to be wilder? How much wilder could it possibly get? Last time we had to go fetch someone off of a mountain in the morning, and the time before that Betsy needed to replace her mirror because she turned it into a portal, and the other mirror it connected to ended up getting dropped into the ocean. The resulting cleanup also took two days straight even with magic. Was still fun, though. I couldn't imagine things getting much more out of hand before it was downright dangerous. My mind went to the other interpretation of what she had said; that it would simply be better, in some way? Something about this festival would be of higher quality and produce more enjoyment than a typical full moon. That was what I'd go with.

"You'll understand in a second." Betsy assured me, watching the sky turn almost fully dark.

I had just thought of what to say in reply as everything fell out of view around us, the light gone. Then, the first rays of the moonlight raced through the trees like beams of orange fire, casting themselves onto us faster than either of us could think to say more. Both of us felt our bodies turn immediately. It was a sensation every werewolf was familiar with. The creaking of our bones as they elongated, thinned while also becoming stronger than granite. Our faces pushing outwards, nose and eyes stinging like freshly cut peppers were being jammed into them. I fell to my knees first, followed by hers. The sound of her hitting the grass only got to me just before I went momentarily deaf, my hearing ringing in a tinnitus-like frequency before the world around me came into view again in a much more stunning relief. My skin still felt like it was trying to split off from my body and crawl away as the last of my fur grew in, pushing itself out from under my shirt and out of my socks. When it was all over I looked over at Betsy, eyes wide.

It often felt easy to just forget about what we were talking about after turning. Now that I could see and hear again though, I couldn't remember what we had been discussing at all. I looked around to see the entire forest cast in a bronze relief, the full moon hung overhead, bathing the entire world in its copper-colored glow. The pine needles looked like they had all been dipped in metal, and I could see the rays of the light dancing around the trees, the shaded areas the only parts retaining their green color. My thoughts were slow and cumbersome, like wading through hip-deep mud to even be able to be properly aware of myself. What was this feeling? I felt so disconnected, but also more present that I'd ever felt before. 

Before I could even come up with a way to express the way I felt, Betsy motioned for me to follow into the tunnel towards the werewolf grove. Even the sensation of walking was bizarre, my body feeling as if it was moving so easily, almost subconsciously the moment I had the inclination to. We emerged into the grove to see many of the werewolves settled around in small circles, oftentimes in threes, whispering amongst each other. It was the least chaotic full moon I'd ever seen, but the oddities did not stop there. Just as I was about to turn to Betsy to ask what was going on, I heard a familiar voice ring out. It was cultured and ancient, smooth and inviting. The Werewolf Queen strode through the clearing up to me, appearing to similarly be cast in molten gold, her normally snow-white coat dyed a magnificent hue by the moon overhead. Her tone was welcoming and smooth, practically whispering to us.

"My children, tonight is a night of feasting and merriment. I wish you both a magnificent time. And you, Hedgehog," She turned to me. "... remember to drink in the feeling of the festival tonight. To ponder the influence of the moon on us this evening, is to rob ourselves of its blessing."

The sound of her voice had my body feeling like a feather was being dragged along my neck, goosebumps rising everywhere. Her words felt like they were shaping my thoughts like clay, forming how I was supposed to react with masterfully skilled grace. Some deep part of me was twisting itself into knots that were practically fractals, but my subconscious mind felt soothed like I was a small child in the presence of its mother. Her insistence on my feelings being this way was done with the grace of a sculptor turning a block of marble into a grand statue. I could feel her words transforming my confused and formless emotions into purpose, my inhibitions carved away to leave the beauty beneath. 

"You're right, I shouldn't be worrying." I replied with a new appreciation for her.

Her smile made me feel a warmth in my stomach, before turning to trot away, her large crown bouncing on her head. Betsy leaned in to take my hand, pulling me off towards a deeper part of the grove. My eyes lit up as we emerged into another clearing, where werewolves all sat at small tables picking over food of all sorts. My friend didn't need to prompt me as to what I wanted. My feet were already carrying me towards the enormous table. The other wolves were already absolutely cramming their mouths full, but I managed to push someone aside to grip a huge turkey leg, shearing it from the main body as if it was attached by paper, then cramming it into my mouth. Every corner of my maw flooded with drool the moment the lightly crisped skin touched my tongue, and my jaws closed on it in a feral snap, turning the bone to fragments at the center, breathing through my nose to fit all the more into my mouth to chew. 

My body shivered with the happiness coursing through my veins as the succulent meat got funneled down my gullet, but after grinding the bone to powder between my molars, the stimulating buzz of it soon faded. Back into the mad grab I went, except this time I didn't leave it. I fought aside another werewolf just to scrape off a fistful of ham and haphazardly jam it into my face, physically shaking as the flavor momentarily felt like lightning on my tongue. Every time someone tried to interfere I would push, scratch, bite and even throw food at them to send them chasing it, only to push my face down to the table again. Soon the dull, rewarding buzz was constant as I continuously assured I had some sort of food in my mouth at all times, always chewing, always swallowing. Drool splashing onto the empty, bone-filled plates beneath me as I pushed them aside to make room for more, as there seemed to always just be more. All the worldly thoughts I had centered around my slavering maw. Salivating, snapping, crushing, gulping, cracking. At times I gagged myself trying to cram the food in where food already was.

It took Betsy stepping in and forcefully pulling me away to at last break the cycle. Anguish flooded me as I felt myself picked up, starting to claw at her only to sink my fingers into her extremely long hair. I felt calmed by it, and was reminded of her, my immediate thoughts turning to her even as the stupor of gorging myself faded away. When she set me down I was somewhere I didn't recognize, nowhere I had ever been before. My brothers and sisters were sitting at the feet of a great statue deep in a hollow, with a basin at its paws. It was a likeness of the Werewolf Queen herself, though seeming weary and worn. The sculpture depicted her fur tossed and pulled, an ear torn, wounds on her legs from which a sanguine liquid flowed down them and into the basin beneath. All around everyone was using stone cups to scoop up some and gulp it down, while others were content to shove their muzzles beneath the surface and gulp it down. Just as I had fully absorbed the scene, one of the wolves fell into the deep basin. I counted quietly in my head how many seconds it would be before they surfaced. It didn't seem they would be, after nearly thirty, and no sign of them on the surface.

While I stared at where they had vanished under the surface, Betsy got a cup from the ground and leapt over the ones knelt at the basin's edge, standing beside the statue at the center of the circular pool. She scooped up a heaping cup of the liquid, before leaping back over gracefully. Before she was even within reach, she was already holding it out to me. My hands accepted it before my brain had, taking a firm grip. Bringing it to my lips was a similarly thoughtless action. There was nothing inhibiting my instincts at that moment.

The instant it passed my lips was marked by a sensation of undiluted confusion flooding me. The only thing it could be described as was drinking pure emotions. A cocktail of exactly what the statue depicted. Serene grace, staring down at the werewolves crowded around the basin, drinking endlessly from the well of boundless love it had for them. However, physically it felt like it sapped every bit of fullness from me from previously gorging myself, leaving me feeling starving. It also robbed me of sense. Where was I? I felt so calm and treasured by my queen, I knew nature and my friends were so very kind to me, but where was I? Who was I? I belonged here, certainly. Looking up into the statue's eyes, filled with an accepting grace, there was a strange feeling inside me. Unconditional, unwavering acceptance and support. It nearly brought me to tears, though I didn't know why. This feeling felt so foreign to me. The physical weakness that was gnawing at me was horrible, but I felt myself compelled to keep drinking. I heard a splash as another werewolf dropped into the fountain. I had already forgotten the first because of the drink.

I never chugged something down so quickly. After licking the cup clean of every drop, I quickly stepped towards the fountain for more. Every part of me yearned to have just one more second, to feel like this for one more moment. A werewolf, a familiar one, caught my shoulder and stepped in front of me, her long hair trailing down to her knees. She was a friend, I could recall. Her voice reached me through my stupor, cooing and guiding me even though I didn't really interpret her words, only her intentions. She made me feel the same as the fountain, watching her eyes full of stirring emotion for me. She was a best friend, I knew at the very base of my soul.

I was guided through the forest once more, drinking in the wonderful sight of the dirt paths looking like rivers of reddish gold under the harvest moon, and werewolves sprinting by howling, laughing in an unknowing passion. They were just like me, probably. I didn't know who I was, or what I was doing. I was in great company, though. Our hands met as we walked, letting her guide me towards wherever we were headed next. I recognized where we went after we approached the tunnel to go back into the werewolf grove. Once we'd entered, we could see many of the others had scattered to the wind around the forest, leaving us mostly alone, save for one presence that stuck around throughout all of it. The Werewolf Queen strode quietly around the steps of her grand tree, heading towards us once she spotted me and my friend. I remembered her despite everything else being a confusing blur. Her grace, her confidence, her motherly tone all echoed deep into my memories.

"Ah, Hedgehog. It's good to see you. I trust you've been enjoying my festival?"

My head bobbed up and down almost automatically. She reminded me of my name, which was quite useful, as a few more memories of myself rushed back to me. All memories of my werewolf self though. The parties, the wild festivities, my senses and power matched by nothing in nature. When she saw the realization on my face, she turned away with a nod of her head. She hadn't said her goodbye yet, signalling me to continue to follow. She never broke off a conversation like that, I could remember. She began to guide me deeper into the grove, past her tree and into much denser forest. Betsy actually split off from me, leaving me alone with the the matriarch, who kept looking back at me to assure I was keeping up. We stepped down a narrow dirt path, the canopy of trees scarcely letting the moonlight through in rays of brilliant orange. Soon I had to focus on where to put my feet as gnarled roots began to grow over the path, as well as small spots of mud.

We rounded a corner into a gap between two small hills that the trail ran through, revealing a deep hollow to me. At first I expected to see her statue again. Instead, I was met with a simple cave set into the smooth rock that made up the floor of the basin. At the center of the depression was a stone table, a beam of the moonlight shining down onto it from a gap in the canopy above. She trotted up to it, resting a paw on the flat rock.

"I heard from Betsy that you won't be returning until the end of next spring. I wanted to give you a parting gift, more than just making you a part of my family. By now I'm sure you feel weak and tired from all of the food and drink."

She couldn't be more correct. My stomach felt full but I still felt hungry, and my limbs were starting to lose the liquid ease that they usually moved with under the full moon. I was starting to think about how I walked and ran, and consciously willing them to go where I wanted them. She gave the slab in front of her a pat, before removing her paw from it, stepping out of the pool of moonlight.

"The night is nearly over. Why don't you rest?"

The rock in front of me didn't exactly look comfortable, but I wasn't about to say no to her. Nothing she'd ever done to me had ever really been for the sake of bothering me or putting me in a bad situation. Even in turning me into a werewolf, she'd been right to give me that. I couldn't really imagine myself as not being a werewolf anymore. Without thinking, I turned my back to the stone table and then gave a small hop, landing on by bottom. It actually wasn't all too bad, maybe owing to my fur being a bit of a cushion. Or maybe it was that rocks weren't all that hard to me, as a werewolf. Either reason seemed valid in my mind. Laying down was actually comfortable, and I could feel a strange warmth on myself as the moonlight shone down onto me. It wasn't heat, but in a sense it felt that way. 

The Queen leapt onto the slab next to me, settling beside me, her soft coat soothing and warm. All the weariness of the night soon caught up to me all at once, and my eyelids sank like anchors in open water. The world felt like it faded away except for the feeling of her beside me, the cool breeze brushing through my fur. The odd energy I felt from the moonlight shining onto me as I laid there made things extra comfortable. The sleep I fell into was deep and restful, but no dreams danced on the inside of my eyelids. I felt vaguely aware of my surroundings, my ears angling around at the occasional sound, but it never roused me. I usually never slept while transformed, so sleeping as a werewolf was a new experience for me. At some point though, the feeling of the moonlight faded, and my ability to properly perceive the world around me while unconscious ebbed with it.

* * *

The sun sending a piercing shard of light right down onto my eyelid woke me with a start, covering my face and rolling onto my hands and knees. My eyes searched the area around me, seeing the cave and the trees that brought last night back into focus. The Queen was nowhere to be seen, probably having wandered off after I had turned back into my usual self. Or at least close to my usual self. My stomach felt incredibly full, and a bit of a headache from sleeping without a pillow was assaulting the back of my head. Rolling off the side of the stone slab, I stood up and looked down at myself. I seemed to be my normal self, though the ground seemed a bit further away than normal. Inspecting my skirt, it was actually a bit shorter than normal, and my sweater's sleeves seemed to not fit quite right. It felt much like my normal werewolf proportions, but slightly less? It felt like a half-way between my werewolf self and my normal self.

With a deep breath, I could also confirm that I was slightly fluffier than normal as well, with more fur than was typical spilling out of my ankle socks. Was this what the Queen had meant about giving me a gift? The inside of my mouth felt funny as well, and I traced my tongue along my teeth to make sure. Sure enough, I now had two sets of incisors. The molar directly behind my fangs on both the top and bottom had been changed into another sharp tooth, and my face felt a bit more defined. I almost felt older, but not like I was any 'older' in the sense that I was wiser. With a shrug, I stepped my way towards the path to head back to my cabin.

I had a lot to think about.. There was plenty of weird feelings to unpack, and plenty of stuff I needed to cover with Betsy if I was ever going to get to the end of it in my mind. What had that statue been? What was the Werewolf Queen doing just having that sitting around? My stomach did a flip as I emerged back out into the grove. Just over the hill I could smell the food that was starting to rot, undoubtedly strewn absolutely everywhere from the feast. I exited the tunnel that led into the grove, finding several people still passed out on the ground, some snoring loudly. None were still transformed, though.

I felt like I'd be full for days at this rate. As I headed back into camp, diverting onto the path towards the witches' cabins, I could already hear Susie having some sort of complaining match with Betsy. I perked my ears as I continued to walk, wondering what had her temper going this early in the morning.

"... every year, it's every year this happens Betsy. You and the other werewolves ate half the living food on the island this time. Half! Why do we keep animating food if it'll last a year at maximum even if we refrigerate it."

For a second I wondered if putting myself into this situation was worth it. Then I realized that there was no point in not, since I was partially responsible for this entire thing. As was every werewolf who was on the island last night. In my best casual tone, I walked up to the both of them and waved.

"Hey Susie, hey Betsy!"

Susie looked back and forth between us, clearly slightly confused, before she just shook her head.

"Hey Bushpig. Enjoy stuffing your face last night? Looks like you hit a bit of a growth spurt from all that living flesh in your stomach."

I looked at the ground, doing my best to tune out the fact that I may or may not have eaten a bunch of organic or magically alive things the night previous. Instead of replying to the first part of what she'd said, I pointed at myself, focusing on my new physical appearance.

"Yeah, isn't it neat! I'm taller, and check this out!" I gave her a toothy grin to show off my teeth. "Shee?"

Susie narrowed her eyes at me, her tone irritated. "Yeah that's real cool. I hate it when you guys do this. I know it's ancient tradition and all that, but a lot of food families are down a few members thanks to you and your friends."

The irritated witch then flicked her wand across herself, vanishing. This left Betsy and I to look at each other. She shrugged, leading me to do the same. Her voice was a lot less regretful than I'd expect, which was relieving.

"Food is food." Was her only comment on the matter.

With my possible ingestion of intelligent, living creatures now able to be ignored, I did so quickly, then walked towards Betsy's cabin door. I started talking even before both of us were inside.

"So about last night, uh... can I get some explanation, or is it just as sort of 'Yeah that happened' type of thing?"

Betsy flicked her wand, pouring us some tea between us as we both sat down at her table, now cozily inside in the air conditioning.

"Well I can answer some questions. The feast, is to keep us from running all over the island and eating everything. And unless we're really careful, everyone."

I cleared my throat at that, figuring that was very sound reasoning. 

"And the food had to be alive because...?"

"It's much more filling, and dead food doesn't fill us very much during the harvest festival."

I blew on the tea and then sipped some of it, enjoying drinking something after last night. It also led me to my next question.

"And the statue?"

Betsy actually went quiet for a second, looking around her cabin like she expected someone to leap out from under the bed or through the window. After a few moments of collecting her thoughts, she looked back to me.

"The statue is a very well kept secret. Nobody can really find it when it's not the full moon. Most of the time it's just full of very pure water, and the statue looks normal. Not all mangled up like it was last night. During the harvest moon though, it's like you saw it. It's not really water, and it does weird things to your head." She explained, taking a gulp of her breakfast tea. "It affects us all differently, but it always makes us love the Queen more."

That explained quite a bit about why I'd felt the way I had. For a while the Werewolf Queen shared a very close emotional proximity to my own mother in my heart, and I couldn't tell if that was a failure on the part of my own Mom or a demonstration of how much the fountain messed with my head. I settled with just feeling both ways. My last question was pretty simple compared to the previous two.

"So, I look like this, now... uh, should I be worried about it? I could totally just say that I just grew during camp, and I think my parents would be fine with it. I don't really mind being taller, and I think I can hear a little better too."

Betsy thought about that, her eyes touring how awkwardly fitting my clothes were now. I was basically the same, just a bit taller, a bit lankier, and my face seemed just slightly more like a teenager's than a kid's. She gave an aloof shrug, smiling at the nonchalant acceptance of my new features.

"I could totally undo it, if this becomes a problem. If you're fine with it though, no need to make a fuss. Susie didn't seem like she cared. Why should we?"

I couldn't help but smile back at her as I replied jokingly. "Well if my parents do ask, do you think they'd even believe me if I told them? I slept on a magic rock in the middle of the forest beside a magic talking dog queen. Now I'm taller, stronger, and I can smell a spoiled tuna sandwich from over a hill."

Betsy rolled her eyes at my attempt at humour, still smiling though. My hostess then refilled my teacup, dropping another sugar cube into it. 

"Well, we all lie to our parents sometimes, for their sake. It's the 'why' and the 'how' we lie that's what makes it wrong or not. I think in this case, you're good to just tell them that you ate your vegetables to get big and strong."

"Yeah..." I replied. "One thing that's bothering me though, I still feel really full. Like it was hard to not throw up when I got off that rock. Is that normal?"

"Trust me, I'm just the same way right now. I don't think I'll eat anything for a few days, or I might need to borrow Susie's book on how to magic myself thinner."

There was no disagreement on that. I'd had enough food for seven people last night, and I was surprised my normal hedgehog stomach could even hold it all. The tea did help, though. A few more questions hung in my head about that night, though. The way that the statue made me feel put the Werewolf Queen's words into a bit of a different light. She'd talked to me like I was a member of her family, calling me her 'child'. It was a strange and confusing way to feel about her, and I didn't know if by werewolf rules I was technically her daughter or not. She'd always had a sort of nurturing tone, but I'd never really given that much thought until now. Had I been realizing that before this, just subconsciously? Maybe I had, maybe I hadn't. That was something that was going to sit in the back of my head and bother me for a while... maybe the rest of the summer. Maybe the rest of my life.

Besty brought me back to reality by clearing her throat.

"So, wanna go show Oscar how tall you are now?"

On some level, I knew she was trying to take my mind off of whatever was bothering me. It was a mutually agreed upon distraction, though. I didn't really want to dwell too much on this. I'd have plenty of time to do that once I left camp and had nothing but time back in school, breezing through assignments like they were nothing. Those were the long stretches of dwelling time, when I was performing mundane tasks. Right now was the last week and a half of my summer camp experience. Even though I knew that I'd be back next year, I wanted with all my heart to enjoy every moment of it.


End file.
